


Ephemerality

by Anorkie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Grief is ugly, M/M, Make that past character death plural, Marriage of Convenience, Past Character Death, Suicidal Tendencies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-24 01:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10731636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anorkie/pseuds/Anorkie
Summary: The devolution of his husband is predetermined; all he can do is watch.





	Ephemerality

He wears the ring like an overworn pair of shoes. “Well-loved” grossly oversimplifies and romanticizes the comparison; rather, the shoes should be visualized with laces frayed to mere threads and hole-poked bottoms. The feet inside are too swollen to ever break free from the place they have been held prisoner for decades.

He wears that silver ring like the absence of its nimble weight will cause forgetfulness, and that forgetfulness could be the first step to a healing process barely scraped.

He has worn that ring every day since their wedding and every day before it. A wedding band is a sentiment exclusive to his home planet. Here, in the far reaches of space, it means nothing to visiting representatives nor garners attention beyond curious glances. Still, its presence is a hard slap to the face on the daily. It is a reminder of humans apparent inability to move on from things long past. It is also a testament to a personal resolve echoed on the day their marriage was decided: _I’m not yours, I’m not yours, I’m not yours._

Lotor’s husband is as hideous as he is beautiful.

Dark marks underline a pair of watchful amethyst eyes. A scar grazes a mouth never in danger of developing laugh lines. His hair is a tousled mess of black ink bleeding against the sallow face it touches. He holds himself with a practiced confidence unwavering to the untrained eye. Anyone who spends time with the Black Paladin outside of meetings will notice the slight slouch of his posture - a thing conceived by self-neglect and cemented by a battle wound. Despite the limp, he is as roguish in combat as he was when Lotor still clashed blades with him. Being on the same side of the battlefield brought his fighting style to a new light. Suddenly, he was more tactful, less brash. He severed their enemies heads with grace. Their spewing, spraying necks would always decorate his face in a shade that cloaked his imperfections. In those moments, trudging sweat-coated armor and gagging on the miasma of death, Lotor could kiss him. That dream wasted away like dreams tend to do and, even now, he finds himself smothering the hope that birthed it.

The entire universe knows of their union and what it represents, although some question the authenticity of it; his husband is no actor and neither is he. Theatrics of affection are not necessary to maintain the peaceful relations of neighboring planets or the cooperation of their representatives. As long as both paladin and former prince are standing in the same room together, operating together, and finding solutions for even the most mundane of disputes that is enough.

In front of their daughter, his husband will adopt a shallow mask her eyes are too meek to yet penetrate - but with time. He will gather her wiggling form into his arms and delight her with the attention his work typically hordes. She will gasp desperately between sentences as her mouth attempts to keep up with how fast her mind is working. And, always, he will interrupt her mid-spiel with brief, easily digestible explanations for why he must leave now. The ever-disappointing remark “Daddy is very busy, Juno” swiftly hushes the otherwise talkative child. It is a simple, hard truth that only makes her more amenable as it is repeated. Lotor, too, can only spare so much time but finds extra where his husband neglects to look.

With a yearning that still feels lukewarm to the touch, Lotor remembers their wedding night and how he mumbled a goodnight into the dark locks of the other man’s hair before being dismissed. They slept in separate beds. They slept in separate beds for the next decade.

A nauseating concoction of misplaced sensuality and shared responsibilities coerced him into Lotor’s bed. The space he occupies is so cold sometimes Lotor wonders if he faded away very silently in his sleep. There is something akin to disappointment when that is not the reality. Still, he finds himself saying “Keith, _my love_ ” to encourage a sense of adoration between them. He has held fast the hope of something genuine blooming if he says it often enough.

Keith, in turn, fiddles with the ring ever suspended from his neck and stifles the disbelieving laughs threatening to arise with those words. His thoughts swirl vibrant reds and violets that appear muddied brown in Lotor’s mind’s eye. Floundering through the most clouded, flooded regions of Keith’s mind, Lotor only comes up with more of _that_ \- trenches of overflowing brown muck. It drenches every pleasant memory and suffocates new ones before they can breathe life. He can only venture so deep before being pulled in by a desperation that is forever reserved for another. Resisting to gasp on mouthfuls of air is a secondary function when his husband’s body desires a consolation it simultaneously loathes. When Keith says he needs space Lotor stretches the distance between them accordingly. Unless work necessitates it, conversation will not be initiated. When Keith mumbles frantic nothings into sweat-soaked sheets, startled awake by a wave of emotion, Lotor holds him as close as he dares. Keith could drown there, Lotor decides, in a fishbowl of his own sweat and tears. He used to believe Keith clung to him as a means of staying afloat; now he realizes, with souring sympathy, he is seen as a weight to be smothered under.

Lotor’s permanent presence on Allura’s ship sent the princess herself into a state of apprehension. Accusations - political, marital - fueled the overall distrust of allowing Lotor to coexist with the Castle’s other inhabitants. More than once, Lotor had been cornered and interrogated: _“Are you hitting Keith?”_ This particular question was laughable because, _more than once,_ Keith has begged Lotor to silence the bitter beat of his heart only to be denied. Lotor never knew how to explain Keith was both victim and aggressor to his own undoing so settled with _no, he would never hit his husband, but thanks for the concern, truly._

Suspicions faded with time. Allura no longer eyes the nearest exit when Lotor steps into the same room. In fact, she lingers after meetings to pull him aside and ask questions like _how is Juno doing?_ and _is there anything you and Keith_ need? The sentiment is appreciated, but the latter is a bullet best left to corrode in its casing.

No amount of coddling will rescue Keith from the depths he haunts. Bringing Juno into their lives offered a distraction where Lotor hoped for a solution. The suggestion of medication or therapy intimidates Keith to tears. The commonly theorized “humans are just more sensitive to loss” transforms those tears into fits of rage.

Lotor once calculated the time between now and what he dubs The First Death. He translated the timespan in Earth’s measurements so Keith could understand.

Sixty years.

Some curse has protected Keith’s wedding ring in all that time. It rests ominously over his chest like an exposed heart. Likewise, Lotor literally wears the scars of his past significant others on his back; however, unlike his husband, he can respect his losses from a distance. Loss is something like a garden ever in danger of overgrowth, drought, and flooding. It must be managed. Keith’s garden is submerged in sixty years worth of rainfall and weeds. The water bloats the fruits while the weeds strangle the flowers. Numb to the sight, Keith is merely a bystander to the massacre.

It is maddening. It is maddening because Keith is more willing to shove a dagger into Lotor’s hands - _do it_ \- than discuss his feelings. It is maddening because he was the one who wanted to adopt Juno, but the time he used to dedicate to her is now reserved for self-pitying. Maddening of all is the fact Lotor is jealous of a dead man. He wants to snatch the ring Shiro bestowed upon Keith - _his_ husband - all those years ago and snap the connecting chain. Beyond that, he doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t know because he would never pull a stunt like that.

An outburst would be nothing more than another hole in the shoe or weed in the garden - ignored, indefinitely. So Lotor will let Keith wander the uninhabited sections of the Castle alone. He will let him drink himself into disquieting stupors like his one friend before him. He will let him find new excuses for being absent for meals and meetings.  

Lotor will let Keith wear that ring he keeps so close to his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> "Where is the context?" you ask. "Context? What context?" I reply before jumping out of a window. This is moreso for myself to?? experiment with ideas?? This is based off of a story I'm currently working on but is something that will not be touched upon for some time. I'm only posting this because I have papers due and need to indulge myself somehow to stay sane. 
> 
> The one thing I will clear up: due to Keith's Galra blood, he has a longer lifespan.
> 
> (Also, some art centering around this AU if that's something you're interested in: deerish.tumblr.com/tagged/The-Changeling-Series)


End file.
